A short keynote-style talk by Adam Markel about leadership and accountability, using personal lifeguard experiences and corporate examples to argue that responsibility is everyone’s job. Markel contrasts simple, enforceable lifeguard rules (“No one goes down on our watch”) with common workplace diffusion of responsibility (e.g., assuming the janitor will pick up litter) and praises organizations like UPS for empowering employees to fulfill mission under crisis (Hurricane Andrew).
Chapters
This is the tough part for so many leaders, and it's usually the weak link in the chain, In a company, and not just a company. In relationships, in family accountability, how do we actually hold people accountable? On the beach, accountability was really simple. We had a mantra. No one goes down watch. That's it. No one goes down on our watch. No one goes down in our water. So we're posing for that picture. We got a guy up there, we call him jimmy. Jimmy the herbalife guy. No offense. I actually keynoted a conference in singapore about two months ago for herbalife. But then, this is in the 80s, long time ago. This guy, they were new company, and he was a new rep, and he. Nobody wanted to sit on the stage stand with poor jimmy, because all he wanted to do is enroll us in this new business. But he was watching the water while we were taking this picture. And the thing about being in the stand was sometimes some other lifeguard would run a rescue right in your. In your water. And, you know, on the break, when you're on your down hour, you'd walk up to the guy and say, hey, listen, I. I saw that, you know, his son was glaring. And, you know, I didn't think that guy was in charge, trouble. It didn't matter. Our ego was not in the equation. Because ultimately, if somebody. If someone else determined that person, that swimmer was in trouble, they got in the water, plain and simple. That was it. That was accountability. But oftentimes, this is what it looks like, isn't it? Who's responsible? Who's responsible for making changes around here. I love this picture because look at where the ball is. You see this? It's like the players on the field. This is one of the three games that the san diego padres won that season. I live in san diego. I'm sorry. It's like, who's responsible for catching that? That's what it often looks like. But here's the thing. We have to understand that it's everybody's job. Everybody's responsible. From any seat at the table, from any position on the field. We can be leaders. I was walking in the hall of our office, and I saw this piece of paper. And all day long, I saw this piece of paper sitting in the hallway. And I had a senior meeting later in the day. I picked up the paper. I walked into the meeting, and I said, who's responsible for this? Some bright guy on the team goes, you know, the janitor. The janitor will be in tonight. Clean out the baskets and pick up the paper. And I said, yeah. So we're going to allow the. That paper to be in the middle of our beautiful hallway, and everybody's gonna walk past it because it's, quote, not their job. People walk past problems all the time. They'll walk past drowning people. I don't want to bring it to the. To the nth degree, but the fact of the matter is that in a company, in a relationship, in a team, you want everybody to look at anything that's happening and pitch in, be willing to step in, catch that ball. Yes. Isn't that what we all want as leaders? I love UPS as this example. Now, this is a company that's got a lot of rules. So this is not about loosening up the structure. Structure is important. People, kids. We have four kids, my wife and I. And structure was always important for us, was always important for our kids. It's important for a company like ups. They have rules for everything. They have rules for how you put your key in the ignition, where you put your keys, how you open and close the door, and the uniform you wear. And yet, when Hurricane Andrew hit decimated Florida, they empowered their employees to do whatever it took just to deliver a package. People were out of their homes, living in their cars, and they were delivering packages to people in their cars because that's what they were empowered to be do, just to fulfill the company's mission, purpose.
